It’s pretty surprising to have the band bio included in your press materials written by The Old 97’s Rhett Miller. It’s even more surprising once you realize John Dufilho, frontman and songwriter behind the decidedly punk rock band Clifffs, has also worked for years with Miller, who’s Americana band sounds absolutely nothing like Clifffs. And that’s part of the beauty of this Texas band’s LP, Panic Attack, it really sounds…
Spanking Charlene’s last album was recorded nearly a decade ago, but the band clearly hasn’t bothered to let rust settle in. On Find Me Out, their third effort, the music is stronger and singer Charlene McPherson’s vocals are seemingly more powerful (quite a feat when you realize how impressive she sounded on the first two records). The New York band builds on the gritty garage pop that came to define…
On his aptly titled fifth album, LP5, Oklahoma’s John Moreland still hues closely to his trademark, introspective songs laced over a satisfying blend of modern Americana and folk that flirts with punk rock candor. But he also manages to deviate a bit from the tried and true with a little musical experimentation for one of his strongest records to date. This also happens to be the first album Moreland has…
Propelled by little more than strong word of mouth and a decade-and-a-half worth of stunningly impressive albums, The Wood Brothers were able to pack Philly’s 2,500 capacity Filmore on a recent Saturday night for an enthusiastic show that was as close as many will come to a religious experience. The Filmore is more than twice the size of the Union Transfer where the band played less than two years ago.…
Four stars Springsteen’s got nothing on David Lowery… well, at the very least, Lowery would have no problems keeping up with Bruce’s legendary reputation for on stage stamina. Lowery played two complete sets to a full capacity crowd at Philadelphia World Café Live recently, first playing a career-spanning set from Camper Van Beethoven and then taking the stage with an almost entirely different line up about 20 minutes later for…
California-based Dustbowl Revival have always been a little hard to pin down musically. There is definitely an Americana vibe to their music, but there are also hefty elements of jazz, swing and pop. Their latest, Is It You, Is It Me does little to dispel that confusion. Across a baker’s dozen of new songs, the band relies just as heavily on their horn section as they do their acoustic guitars…
Simple Minds may best be remembered in this country for the outro song that gets played during the final shot of The Breakfast Club – a track that has almost become shorthand for Generation X rebellion, played at school reunions to this day. But as many in Europe and elsewhere outside of the U.S. realized decades ago, the Scottish band has an exhaustively large cannon of music that pre-and post-dates that…
While The Raspberries and Big Star are almost always the first bands namechecked in any discussion about Power Pop, there were a slew of remarkably brilliant U.S. bands throughout the early-, mid-1980s who picked up that flag and carried it on for a while before getting drowned out by synth pop and hair metal on the radio. Groups like The Plimsouls, The Romantics and Dramarama created some remarkably addictive songs…
For the past 15 years, The Wood Brothers have managed to forge a wildly uncompromising career, trends be damned, churning out their own brand of folk, blues and Americana through a series of eclectically satisfying studio records and live albums, bringing along a growing crowd of followers with each successive release. Kingdom In My Mind, thankfully fits right in line with the rest of their cannon. This, their seventh album,…
While G. Love’s latest, The Juice, is technically a solo album, he still filled the studio with plenty of friends for the outing. Most prominently was former labelmate Keb Mo, who co-produced, co-wrote and performs on several songs across the record. Other guests who stopped by the studio include Marcus King, Robert Randolph, Roosevelt Collier and Ron Artis. And while this slew of new voices and players don’t entirely change…
